Architecture and Public Policy

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CIS explores how changes in the architecture of computer networks affect the economic environment for innovation and competition on the Internet, and how the law should react to those changes. This work has lead us to analyze the issue of network neutrality, perhaps the Internet's most debated policy issue, which concerns Internet user's ability to access the content and software of their choice without interference from network providers.

Professor of Law and Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School, Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Barbara van Schewick is a Professor of Law and Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School, Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering in Stanford University’s Department of Electrical Engineering, and a leading expert on net neutrality.

Paddy Leerssen is the Open Internet Fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. His work focuses on digital media and communications law, with a particular emphasis on net neutrality policy. He previously held positions at the Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Information Law (IViR), and the non-governmental organization European Digital Rights (EDRi).

Marvin Ammori is a leading First Amendment lawyer and Internet policy expert. He was instrumental to the adoption of network neutrality rules in the US and abroad–having been perhaps the nation’s leading legal advocate advancing network neutrality–and also instrumental to the defeat of the SOPA and PIPA copyright/censorship bills.

Emily Baxter is a research associate for Women's Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, focusing on women's and families' economic security, women's leadership, and work-family balance. She previously worked as the special assistant for the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center. In the fall of 2012, Emily was a field organizer for President Obama’s re-election campaign near her hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania.

It’s difficult to recall an internal memo gone viral that has sparked as much commentary as James Damore’s statement on gender and engineering at Google. This post is not about that memo, although the volume of commentary on it did prompt the thoughts that follow. Nor is this post about workplace diversity, at least not directly. Instead, like many other “Tool Without a Handle” posts, it is about metaphor.

In particular, I wanted to test whether, in preferring the metaphor of “a tool you use” as distinct from “a place you go,” I’d unduly limited my thinking to an “androcentric” view of networked information technologies. In other words, is “tool” a masculine metaphor, implying a gendered orientation towards my preferred approach to thinking about technology?

I conclude the answer is “no,” in part because metaphor differs from gender, and in part because metaphor is a feature of language, while gender is a feature of persons. Moreover, I identify a general objection to dichotomizing and to gender metaphors.

Most people I talk to think that Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies should take down ugly-but-legal user speech. Platforms are generally applauded for taking down racist posts from the White Nationalist demonstrators in Charlottesville, for example. I see plenty of disagreement about exactly what user-generated content should come down -- breastfeeding images? Passages from Lolita? Passages from Mein Kampf? But few really oppose the basic predicate of these removals: that private companies can and should be arbiters of permissible speech on their platforms.*

As part of it's 50th anniversary celebrations, the Australian university where I did graduate work recently interviewed me on a range of cybersecurity topics. At the time of our chat, Australian Prime Minister Turnbull had just proclaimed that "the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that.

The FCC is poised to rescind the Open Internet Order—the set of strong, enforceable net neutrality rules that prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from interfering with web traffic that travels across their networks. One unintentional victim of that action is likely to be small television stations, newspaper publishers, and websites devoted to local news. Local news outlets play a vital civic role, but they face a crisis of declining revenue and audience, largely driven by internet competition.

On Wednesday November 22, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai published his draft order outlining his plan to undo the net neutrality protections that have been in place in the U.S. since the beginning of the Internet. His proposal would leave both the FCC and the states powerless to protect consumers and businesses against net neutrality violations by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon that connect us to the Internet.

Earlier this week Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai announced a radical plan to undo the net neutrality protections that have been in place in the U.S. since the beginning of the Internet.

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Comcast Corp. v. FCC is a 2010 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia case holding that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have ancillary jurisdiction over Comcast’s Internet service under the language of the Communications Act of 1934. In so holding, the Court vacated a 2008 order issued by the FCC that asserted jurisdiction over Comcast’s network management polices and censured Comcast from interfering with its subscribers' use of peer-to-peer software.

In 2005, on the same day the FCC re-classified DSL service and effectively reduced the regulatory obligations of DSL providers, the FCC announced its unanimous view that consumers are entitled to certain rights and expectations with respect to their broadband service, including the right to:

"The Wiener bill is more comprehensive than the others and would “match the level of protection” of the FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rules, at least within California, said Barbara van Schewick, a Stanford Law School professor. Van Schewick provided feedback to Wiener’s staff on some of the legal technicalities of the proposed bill."

""The bill ensures that ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon can't use their power over the on-ramps to the internet to interfere with the free markets that depend on the internet," Barbara van Schewick, a Stanford Law School professor and director of the school's Center for Internet and Society, said in a statement."

"Barbara van Schewick, a law professor at Stanford University who specializes in internet regulation, doesn’t believe the the FCC’s pre-emption clause will hold water. According to case law “the FCC can only prevent the states from adopting net neutrality protections if the FCC has authority to adopt net neutrality protections itself,” van Schewick wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

"The legislation "is the first state-level bill that would comprehensively secure all of the net neutrality protections that Americans currently enjoy," according to Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick. (The Federal Communications Commission repeal hasn't taken effect yet.)

The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School. CIS brings together scholars, academics, legislators, students, programmers, security researchers, and scientists to study the interaction of new technologies and the law and to examine how the synergy between the two can either promote or harm public goods like free speech, innovation, privacy, public commons, diversity, and scientific inquiry.

After 20 years of international criminal trials, it is time to reassess the relationship between such trials and transitional justice. Do such trials promote the aims of transitional justice or thwart them? Are there synergies between rule of law initiatives and accountability measures or are they operating at cross-purposes? Our speakers will address these fundamental questions in the context of the latest developments in the field, such as the trial of Hissene Habré.

The University of Washington School of Law is delighted to announce a public workshop on the law and policy of artificial intelligence, co-hosted by the White House and UW’s Tech Policy Lab. The event places leading artificial intelligence experts from academia and industry in conversation with government officials interested in developing a wise and effective policy framework for this increasingly important technology. The event is free and open to the public but requires registration. -

"Veronica B.: Look at it this way. Imagine Amazon started a larva farm too, and they could pay for faster internet speeds, get on an internet fast lane, and advertise to their customers in a way that Patrick or any startup bug business couldn’t. See the problem? Okay, the edible bug-growing business might not be a priority for Amazon at the moment, but did you think Amazon would ever buy a grocery chain until they bought wholefoods? 10 years ago, did you think Google would get into self-driving cars?

This week on CounterSpin: FCC chair Ajit Pai has announced his plans to gut net neutrality; the former Verizon lawyer and Jeff Sessions staffer declared his intentions at a private event in DC. So the victory activists fought for—having broadband recognized as a public utility like the telephone, and not some sort of corporate gift—is in jeopardy. What does this mean for all of us who rely on an open internet, and in particular for communities of color, for whom the web’s relatively even playing field is crucial for communication and organizing?

In 2013, Elon Musk proposed an "open source transportation concept" of levitating vehicles zooming passengers through vacuum tubes at 760 miles an hour. It would be weatherproof, energy-efficient, relatively inexpensive, have autonomous controls. Its impact on urban and inter-city transport could reshape economies and families.